McGillis nets two goals in third period to lead San Jose back
for a 5-5 tie
SAN JOSE – Two goals from Dan McGillis in the third period salvaged a 5-5 tie for the San Jose Sharks with the Edmonton Oilers Monday, leaving the hosts eight points out of a playoff spot nearing the halfway mark of the season.
The Oilers, nestled in eighth in the Western Conference with 46 points, exploded to a 5-2 lead early in the second period before the Sharks responded with three unanswered tallies. San Jose has 38 points, in 12th place after 40 games.
The homestand continues Thursday against St. Louis and Saturday against Vancouver. After 12 consecutive sell-outs at HP Pavilion, a crowd of 16,648 attended Monday’s game (841 short of a full house).
“Coming back like that (5-2 deficit) was a huge point for us,” said McGillis, who joined the Sharks one month earlier through a trade with the Philadelphia Flyers. “That’s some of the best hockey we’ve played since I’ve been here.”
“We decided to play our kind of hockey,” defenseman Scott Hannan said of the third-period reversal of fortune. “Ronnie (Wilson) talked between periods about playing with more emotion. We had a new attitude in the third period. We’ve got to play with emotion, play our game and things will take care of themselves.”
Edmonton converted its first three power-play opportunities to fashion a 4-2 lead by the early second period. When Mike York picked Hannan’s pocket near the San Jose goal and beat Evgeni Nabokov from point-blank range for a short-handed goal at 4:12 of the second, the Sharks faced a three-goal deficit.
Scott Thornton scored 8:02 into the period when he jammed home a rebound of a Bryan Marchment shot.
“That was fun, the most intense game we’ve had this season,” Thornton, who netted his fifth goal of the cammpaign, said.
McGillis made it a one-goal game when he scored 11:03 into the third period on a power play. McGillis dekeed around a defenseman at the right boards and skated within 10 feet of the net before chipping the puck toward goalie Tommy Salo. The netminder made the initial save, but his stick poked the puck across the goalline.
McGillis had a more conventional even-strength goal to tie the score at 14:46. McGillis ripped a shot from the high slot off a Niklas Sundstrom feed. The puck rebounded high toward the left-wing circle. McGillis garnered the puck and whipped it past Salo’s shoulder for the equalizer.
“Mike Ricci picked (Edmonton winger) Mike York and that gave me time to skate,” said McGillis. “I didn’t get a good shot off, but it was quick enough that it didn’t give the goalie much time.”
“We had a great start again, them, boom, it’s 2-1,” Wilson said of the San Jose woes in the first period recently. “We’ve been incredibly good and incredibly bad, and we’ve got to get the bad out.”
San Jose grabbed a 1-0 lead 3:07 into the first period when Todd Harvey delivered a 20-footer from the slot on a 3-on-2 rush at Salo. Edmonton responded with two goals within a 41 second span for a 2-1 lead at 13:05. Todd Marchant turned a rebound into a goal at 12:24 on the power play, while Shawn Horcoff bounced a shot off Nabokov’s pads from behind the endline for a goal.
Hannan produced a tying goal at 14:24 with a hard shot from the left point, but Edmonton left the first period with a 3-2 lead when Ryan Smith tipped in a goal at 17:23.
Smyth added a power-play goal 1:05 into the second before York closed out the Oiler scoring.
The Sharks placed defenseman Brad Stuart on injured reserve today because of contuinuing problems with his left ankle. The ankle will be re-evaluated after one week.
